Sept. 19 – The United States can help Mongolia to balance the pressure from two large authoritarian neighbors, Russia and China, American eminent political scientist, Francis Fukuyama writes in his blog “Mongolia, Mining, and Malfeasance.”

“The country needs support from outside powers and particularly from the United States,” said Fukuyama without going in details about how in particular the United States could help the Northern Asian democracy squeezed between its two massive neighbors.

The American professor and his colleagues Larry Diamond and Steve Krasner from Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law faculty (CDDRL) traveled to Mongolia at the invitation of President Elbegdorj to teach an abridged form of the Draper Hills Summer Fellows program to a group of young Mongolians under the auspices of the Mongolian Institute for Strategic Studies. Continue reading →

Indian and Mongolian Monks at Khamariin Khiid, an Indian-Mongolia partnership

Jul. 21 – The President of India, Mrs. Pratibha Devisingh Patil, will pay an official state visit to Mongolia from July 22nd. During her visit, the Foreign Investment and Foreign Trade Agency, the Confederation of Indian Industries, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India will jointly organize a business forum on July 29. India has a long relationship with Mongolia, despite the apparent distance. Tibetan Buddhism is still a strong influence in many Mongolians’ lives, and the resurgence of religious beliefs in Mongolia has leaped since the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from the country in 1992.

Famously, the 19th Kushok Bakula Rinpoche was appointed Indian Ambassador to Mongolia in 1990. Following Mongolian independence in 1992, he was instrumental in reviving Buddhism in Mongolia, arranging the Dalai Lama’s visit to Mongolia in 1979, which resulted in an agreement for monks from Mongolia to come to India to study Buddhism. During his service as India’s ambassador to Mongolia he encouraged more Mongolian monks to come to India and study at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamsala, in Karnataka at the Drepung Gomang in Mundgod or the Sera Monastery in Bylakuppe, and in other places. Due to his efforts, the number of scholarships for Mongolians to study in India expanded from just a few to over 100. Continue reading →